Chapter 15: Itoll Oc'skar
Aboard the Liberator
Tears ran down from Itoll's heterochromatic eyes. More than half of Team Muun had been killed by friendly fire. I am going to have to have to tell Fojo's parents he was shot by a Republic Admiral. Why were we even there?
Itoll knew the reason on an intellectual level. He had wanted to stop Tarkin from killing more civilians. What happened next though made absolutely no sense. Buzz killed Miralo. Wulf beat Buzz up and tried executing Buzz by blowing him up with a thermal detonator. Buzz shot Wulf and Tarkin. Tarkin tried to kill me and Sey'les. Tarkin killed Fojo.
"Jazal?" the Bothan sniffled, jingling his handcuff linked to the edge of his stretcher as he was pushed along through the halls. "I can walk."
"No Itoll, you are injured," Jazal said, running her fingers along his snout.
"Tarkin killed civilians. He killed Pax. Buzz killed Miralo, Wulf—"
"—Wulf is in surgery now," Jazal said, "and I know. I will be taking statements from all of you later."
Itoll's fur twirled unhappily. "Jazal, there are some things I haven't told you."
"I know," Jazal sighed as they entered the brightly-lit medbay.
Buzz was in a bed on the opposite side of the room, handcuffed to a bed. His face was completely covered in bandages and he had casts on both hands.
Grath was in one next to where Itoll was being placed, with burn tape on his shoulder.
"Sometimes, in war, unexpected things happen," Jazal noted serenely.
Itoll shivered as he felt something reaching through the air, pushing on his fur. The light fixtures in the room began to shake and a few heart monitors began beeping.
"Sometimes, a psychopathic Admiral decides to just put thousands of beings to death without clearing this decision with you. Sometimes, a Naval officer you have a fling with decides to go up a turbolift with his friends. Then they shoot at their fellow soldiers and everyone dies."
"Master," Itoll croaked. "I am sorry, I really don't know what happened."
"General, I know what happened. It was Buzz," Grath said confidently. "Well, partly Buzz. And Wulf too... And also Tarkin."
"So I didn't sense you and Itoll shoot two interrogation Clones?"
"That was self-defense General," Grath said firmly. "They were trying to kill us. We had our blasters set to stun but then..."
"But then they weren't on stun," Jazal noted.
"Where is… Where is Sey'les?" Itoll growled worriedly, looking around the sickbay and sniffing the air.
"Lieutenant Commander Sey'les is in the brig, where you will be too once you are cleared," Jazal reassured both of them. "Wulf is in surgery. Tarkin too is in surgery."
"Ma'am, you must know," Itoll croaked, "we were only trying to stop Tarkin. We had a legitimate relief of command order typed up, with Fojo's signature. The whole thing just went sideways."
"You know Itoll? I was on my way down. I was going to relieve Tarkin myself."
"That's not fair," Itoll croaked, his heart sinking. "There's no way I could have known!"
"Itoll, I suggest you and Grath hold off on the commentary until I am ready to sift through all of… All of this," Jazal said tersely, gesturing around the room to Buzz. "I believe you to some extent, but many things just don't add up."
Itoll nodded sadly, sniffling. Grath tugged angrily on his handcuff.
o.o.o.o.o
Lir Sey'les
Sey'les rarely found the time to be introspective, but now, alone in the brig, she could not do anything else.
Wulf was right, Sey'les thought to herself, staring teary eyed into the red forcefield in front of her.
Wearing an orange jumpsuit, with half of her team KIA, everyone but her wounded, and the love of her life shot in the head and barely clinging to life, this was an easy conclusion to arrive at. None of the Spynet's plan made a lick of sense, regardless of whether she agreed with it. It was fundamentally impossible for it to work the way they expected. By the time we got there, the plan had already gone sideways. Buzz was shooting people. Tarkin was armed and on the loose. As much as Itoll and I worked to stop the plan, it had already failed.
The deepest irony of the failure, which was gnawing at the pit of Sey'les's stomach, was that she had evaluated Jazal's personality nine months ago. With direct access to Vasa Ro'val, who was acting as her psychiatrist at the time, that evaluation would have been at the top of Ro'val's schemes.
Sey'les tried to rack her brain. Tried coming up with something she had written in that report which would explain how wrong the Spynet was. But she couldn't figure it out. I said Jazal was 9/10 corruptible, with Itoll as a lover and a secret house. That's true. I also said she was intelligent, a scientist… How could they have possibly thought Jazal would just kill Tarkin?
The only way the plan made any sense to Sey'les, was for Itoll to have been in harm's way. They probably assumed Tarkin would threaten to execute Itoll if Jazal showed up… Then Jazal would kill Tarkin to save Itoll.
The thought sickened her even more than Buzz's equally baffling killing-spree. We are nothing to the Spynet. Just pawns in some sick game. Well, kriff them.